Not far from where I grew up in central Louisiana, there is a patch of land that runs along Bayou Boeuf, a lazy river of cocoa overgrown by towering oak and cypress trees.

More than 150 years ago, this area was the setting for one of the most remarkably terrifying true tales I’d ever heard growing up — about a free black man, Solomon Northup, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery.

“Twelve Years a Slave,” the best-selling autobiography that Northup penned before the Civil War, is now a major motion picture that opened two weeks ago to rave reviews.

The movie “12 Years a Slave” is an emotionally riveting story that offers an unflinching portrait of slavery in the U.S. Produced by Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment and directed by Steve McQueen (“Shame”), the film boasts a star-studded cast featuring Chiwetel Ejiofor playing Northup, Michael Fassbender as slave owner Edwin Epps, and Mr. Pitt as a man who helps Northup win back his freedom. Several scenes haunted me days later, and its elegantly assembled storyline, superb acting and historical accuracy will not only win Oscar nods, but makes the film an instant American classic.

But the triumphant Hollywood ending with Northup’s freedom is, I believe, where the real story and the true mystery of Northup begins. Read More »

Representative Joe Courtney thinks director Steven Spielberg owes Congress and Connecticut both an apology and a remake. While most historians and critics have heaped accolades on Spielberg’s Oscar-nomination-leading movie “Lincoln,” the third term Connecticut congressman insists Spielberg portrayed a crucial moment in history so inaccurately he should issue a public apology and a corrected version of the film before it is released on DVD.

“Lincoln” focuses on the President’s efforts to engineer Congressional passage of the thirteenth amendment abolishing slavery in January 1865. It is a classic tale of political wheeling and dealing that reveals Lincoln to be a shrewd politician and an unwavering abolitionist. The film’s climax comes during the House roll call vote over passage of the amendment. The tension of that moment is heightened when, early on, two of the three Connecticut delegates vote against the amendment.

Congressman Courtney, one of the roughly 21 million moviegoers who have already seen “Lincoln,” “was on the edge of my seat” as he watched Spielberg’s reenactment of the vote. When he saw Connecticans vote to uphold slavery, however, he was stunned. “I could not believe my own eyes and ears,” he wrote Spielberg. “How could congressmen from Connecticut – a state that supported President Lincoln and lost thousands of her sons fighting against slavery on the Union side of the Civil War – have been on the wrong side of history?” Read More »

On Tuesday, Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut wrote in an open letter that the film “Lincoln” was wrong to suggest that two congressmen from his state voted against the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery (in fact, all four of the state’s representatives voted for it in 1865) and asked director Steven Spielberg to correct the DVD version. Now “Lincoln” screenwriter Tony Kushner has responded to Courtney’s criticisms with his own letter.

In his note, Kushner concedes that the film changed the historical record. “Rep. Courtney is correct that the four members of the Connecticut delegation voted for the amendment. We changed two of the delegation’s votes, and we made up new names for the men casting those votes, so as not to ascribe any actions to actual persons who didn’t perform them,” Kushner writes.

Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut says a key part of “Lincoln” is wrong and he wants the film fixed. The film shows two of three lawmakers from his state voting against the 13th Amendment, the landmark measure that prohibited slavery in the U.S.; but Courtney says that according to the Congressional Record, all four representatives from his state actually voted in favor of the 13th amendment (This is confirmed by historical records from the time). “I could not believe my own eyes and ears,” Courtney wrote in a letter to “Lincoln” director Steven Spielberg. “How could Congressmen from Connecticut –a state that supported President Lincoln and lost thousands of her sons fighting against slavery on the Union side of the civil war– have been on the wrong side of history?” The congressman goes on to call accuracy “paramount,” and asks that Spielberg acknowledge and correct the inaccuracies before “Lincoln” is released on DVD. A representative for “Lincoln” didn’t return a request for comment. Read the full text of the letter after the jump. Read More »

I had a pretty good idea of where “Django Unchained” was going from the first credit. It went to the Weinstein Company. The Weinstein Company once fought a legal battle (settled out of court) over the right to distribute “Precious,” which is, in my opinion, the worst film ever made about black life. The company’s name in the credits for “Django” also meant that the movie was aimed at a mainstream audience.

Though German, the bounty hunter character played by German-Austrian actor Christoph Waltz seemed to speak with a British accent, which is all the rage in the media, though I need subtitles to understand what Piers Morgan is saying half the time. The German dentist dazzles the screen with his eloquent talk and vocabulary and puts together constructions like “shan’t.” I would loved to have been present at the marketing meetings about this movie. The cynicism must have been as thick as cigar smoke. Jamie Foxx has been promoted as the star of “Django Unchained,” and has assumed the role as movie defender–the same role played by Viola Davis in the promotion of the equally offensive “The Help.” Foxx serves as a buffer between the producers and the wrath of blacks like those who attended a recent showing where the film’s writer and director Quentin Tarantino reportedly faced hostile questions from a black audience. Read More »

According to Movieline.com, Samuel L. Jackson is describing Stephen, the character he plays in Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” as “the most reprehensible negro in cinema history.” But when it comes to Hollywood depictions of black men as slaves, there’s plenty of reprehensibility to go around. So how does Stephen measure up?

D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” (1915), an early and notorious example, created a pro-slavery paean by contrasting stereotypes of free and enslaved black men, all played by whites in blackface. Slaves are docile cotton pickers, singing and dancing to entertain their owners. But black men, submissive and simple-minded within the institution of slavery, embody more insidious stereotypes once they’re liberated. The film’s freemen are both laughable political buffoons and hyper-sexualized threats, kidnapping one white woman and causing the suicide of another. A masterpiece of innovative cinematic technique, Griffith’s film was more than just an apologia for slavery. The first movie to be screened at the White House, it spawned the twentieth-century resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. “Birth of a Nation’s” reprehensible negroes ushered in a century of white America working out—and often working up—its own anxiety about black manhood through films about slavery. Read More »

Quentin Tarantino is probably not among the first directors you’d pick to make a sensitive and probing movie about the horrifying institution of American slavery. But judging by the newest trailer for Tarantino’s movie “Django Unchained,” he’s not going for sensitive and probing, he’s going for action and adventure and he’s certainly a proven talent in those areas. “Django Unchained” stars Jamie Foxx as an unshackled slave and Leonardo DiCaprio as a slave master and is loosely based on a 1966 spaghetti western titled “Django” by Italian filmmaker Sergio Corbucci. The trailer also features Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson–and Jonah Hill as man riding with the Ku Klux Klan. This is a movie many people have been dying to see. As Foxx says in the trailer “I’m curious what makes you so curious.” The blood that spatters the cotton fields as Django takes out a victim is an apt symbol for the approach of this film. It seems to be transforming the tropes of the slave movie genre into something more suitable for the age–Tarantino is looking for vengeance, not just sorrow; heroes, not just victims–in other words, this is a kind of cinematic emancipation. (John Singleton attempted something along these lines in his 1997 movie “Rosewood,” and so did Steven Spielberg that same year with “Amistad.”) Could Tarantino’s take ultimately be more empowering to viewers than, say, something like Steve McQueen’s coming “Twelve Years a Slave”? We won’t know until both films are out. “Why don’t they just rise up and kill the whites?” DiCaprio’s character asks in the movie. Christoph Waltz’s bounty hunter responds: “Who knows what could happen?”

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.